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rabbitcruiser · 2 years

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World Elephant Day

Personifying prehistoric beauty, theological relevance, and environmental importance, this August 12, we honor one of Earth’s most magnificent creatures with World Elephant Day. Over the last decade, the number of elephants has significantly dropped by 62% and they could be mostly extinct by the end of the next decade.

It is estimated that, every day, 100 African elephants are killed by poachers. The desire for ivory in Asian markets has led to the slaughter of thousands of elephants. World Elephant Day was created to raise awareness and create change to save these majestic creatures. Since its founding in 2012 by Patricia Sims and the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation of Thailand along with over 100 elephant conservation organizations worldwide, World Elephant Day has reached millions of individuals who love elephants and want to do whatever they can to help.

World Elephant Day is a day where organizations and individuals can rally together to give a voice to the issues threatening elephants.

This powerful, collective global movement offers a way to establish and endorse conservation solutions to make the world a safer place for elephants and their habitats so future generations can appreciate them.

Let’s combine all our efforts on August 12 for World Elephant Day 2021 to help preserve and safeguard elephants from the multiple threats they face.

History of World Elephant Day

Elephants and humans have come a long way together throughout the history of civilization. Thanks to the sheer expanse of the African elephant’s natural environment as well as its size and threatening posture, it has largely managed to resist captivity and domestication. The Asian elephant, on the other hand, which has lived alongside humans for over 4,000 years, enjoys great respect and is associated with a variety of cultural and spiritual customs. In Thailand, for example, the elephants are a national icon with a national holiday dedicated entirely to them and they can even receive a royal title from the king.

Despite all of the above, there is still a lot we don’t know about elephants. They have the biggest brain of any land animal, which makes them clever, conscious, social, and empathetic — qualities we humans strive for in ourselves. Humans and elephants share many characteristics and they are possibly more like us than any other animal. But we are putting their future in jeopardy and threatening their essential biodiverse habitats throughout Asia and Africa.

Elephants are a keystone species for their environments since they promote healthy ecosystems and encourage biodiversity. As the World Elephant Day website says, “To lose the elephant is to lose an environmental caretaker and an animal from which we have much to learn.”

We can save elephants by enforcing stronger local- and international protection policies and legislation for wild elephants against poaching and the illegal trade of ivory, promoting better management of their natural habitats, educating people on the vital role of the elephant in ecosystems, improving the way elephants in captivity are treated, and, if necessary, reintroducing captive elephants into wildlife reserves to allow a natural replenishing of endangered populations. These are just some of the aims of various elephant conservation organizations around the world.

Elephants are running out of space and time. We have to work together to prevent senseless poaching and the trafficking of ivory, and establish protected natural sanctuaries in which elephants and other wildlife can thrive — before it’s too late and they’re all gone.

World Elephant Day timeline

279 B.C. Armed Elephants

The Greek general Pyrrhus attempts to restore Alexander the Great’s empire by invading southern Italy with an army that includes 20 armed and armored elephants.

218 B.C. Surviving Elephants

Famous Carthaginian general Hannibal leads a cavalry of 37 elephants across the Alps — Surus, the only elephant to survive, becomes his mount for 15 years.

801 A.D. Arabian Elephant

A Jewish trader named Isaac is sent by Charlamagne to procure an elephant who would later be immortalized in many of the “Arabian Nights” stories.

1885 Jumbo the Elephant

Jumbo, circus owner P.T. Barnum’s famed elephant that he purchased in France, is struck and killed in a rail-yard accident — Barnum continued making handsome profits off exhibiting the elephant’s skeleton.

1903 Edison Kills Elephant

The Edison Manufacturing Company films the public electrocution of an elephant named Topsy conducted by General Electric.

1916 Murderous Mary

An elephant by the name of Mary who crushed her ill-equipped assistant trainer after poking her in an infection is hung by the neck for murder.

HOW TO OBSERVE WORLD ELEPHANT DAY 2021

Donate!

Participate

Educate yourself

Donate to the World Elephant Society or the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation, which focuses on restoring natural habitats, changing legislation, and the rehabilitation of these animals.

Inform other people about what is happening to elephants, get your friends to sign a pledge, or share your love and concern for elephants with a hashtag #WorldElephantDay or #WorldElephantDay2021

Learn about what others are doing to conserve and protect elephants. Support efforts to treat and care for these magnificent creatures in non-exploitive and sustainable environments where they can thrive. And join World Elephant Day’s list of elephant supporters.

5 FUN FACTS ABOUT ELEPHANTS

Their tusks are teeth

They eat a Lot

Endangered elephants

Threatened elephants

Missing elephants

Elephant tusks are actually enlarged incisor teeth that first appear when elephants are around two years old.

Elephants need up to 150 kg of food per day — that equals about 150 bags of chips!

The Asian elephant is an endangered species with less than 40,000 remaining worldwide.

The African elephant is threatened with less than 400,000 remaining worldwide.

There were over 100,000 elephants in Thailand at the beginning of the last century — today, there are less than 4,000.

Why World Elephant Day is Important

We love elephants

They’re crucial to the environment

We don’t know much about them

Humans haven’t been very kind to elephants throughout history, despite all they’ve done for us. They are intelligent, loving, and mysterious creatures that should be preserved.

Elephants are a keystone species, which means they create and maintain the ecosystems in which they live and make it possible for a myriad of plant and animal species to live in those environments as well. The loss of elephants gravely affects many species that depend on elephant-maintained ecosystems and causes major habitat chaos and a weakening to the structure and diversity of nature itself.

Elephants have the largest brains of any living mammal on Earth. We still have a lot to learn from them and we can’t do that if they are all extinct.

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xtruss · 4 months

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A Migratory Monarch Butterfly Feeds on Native Flowers in Zapalinamé State Park in Coahuila, Mexico, During the Fall Migration. Drought and Warmer Temperatures can Kill Off the Flowers that the Insects Rely on For Survival.

Migratory Monarch Numbers Take A Dive—But They’ll Bounce Back

Warm temperatures and drought have likely contributed to fewer butterflies in their wintering grounds of Mexico, but experts say the subspecies is resilient.

— Photographs By Jaime Rojo | February 9, 2024 | By Jessica Taylor Price

Each year, millions of migratory eastern monarch butterflies travel up to 3,000 miles from southern Canada and the Great Plains of the United States to spend their winters in Mexico’s mountain forests.

But about 59 percent fewer of the insect made the trip this winter compared with the last, according to a new report released this week by the Mexican government and other groups. The new data reflects a troubling trend for the species as it faces the joint threats of climate change and habitat loss throughout its range.

The migrating population, a subspecies, represents about 85 percent of all eastern monarchs, according to Jorge Rickards, director of WWF-Mexico. This data, he said, is a good indication of the health of the eastern monarch as a whole.

"It is a very direct call to attention that nature has given us that we cannot lower our guard, and we need to continue strengthening conservation measures," Rickards says.

A Solar Plant Owned by the Company Engie's, in Anoka, Minnesota, also provides habtiat for pollinators such as monarchs. With thoughtful planting of native grasses and flowers, the insects can thrive.

Migratory monarch butterflies were present in 2.2 acres of Mexican forest in the second half of December 2023, compared with 5.5 acres in the same period in 2022, according to the report by WWF, the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas in Mexico, and the WWF-TELMEX Telcel Foundation Alliance. Overall, scientists surveyed nine butterfly colonies in two states—four in Michoacán and five in Mexico.

The acreage is the second-smallest number since 1993, when data was first recorded. The lowest-ever recording was in 2013 to 14, when monarch butterflies occupied 1.7 acres; the highest was 45 acres, in 1996-97.

It is normal for monarch populations to fluctuate over time, Rickards says.

In 2022, the International Union for Conservation of Nature declared the migratory monarch butterfly endangered, a decision that made headlines around the world. In October 2023, the organization downlisted the subspecies as vulnerable to extinction, claiming that models showing the insect’s demise were likely too cautious.

That said, in the case of eastern monarchs, "the overall trend has been to decrease, so we need to act very quickly and very strongly to build conditions for them to bounce back," says Rickards, for instance by reducing pesticide use in Mexico.

For the last 30 years, a team of WWF-Mexico and the National Commission for Protected Areas of Mexico (CONANP) has worked with local communities in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve to monitor the size of the wintering colony of monarch butterflies.

“It Needs Us Humans”

When monarch eggs hatch into caterpillars, they feed on milkweed, the only plant on which migrating monarchs lay their eggs. This makes them toxic to their predators. If they're born in the late summer or early fall, the butterflies will then make the trip south to Mexico for the winter, where they gather in the millions on native fir trees.

It's a trip that millions will take but from which none will return. In the spring, the population starts to move back north, laying eggs along the way and creating a new generation to carry on the relay back to the United States and Canada. The journey can take four or five generations in total to complete. Incredibly, monarchs on their way north have life spans of five to seven weeks, while those headed south can live up to eight months.

Eastern monarch populations have declined by about 80 percent since the 1980s, mostly due to the growth of agriculture, which has killed off vast amounts of milkweed.

Monarch Butterflies Cluster on a Fir Branch in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

High temperatures and drought in the United States and Canada during the winter of 2023 to 2024 are to blame for this year’s decrease, as they can destroy the remaining milkweed.

Deforestation in Mexico has also eliminated areas the butterflies need to survive the winter. Herbicides and pesticides kill milkweed and affecting the butterflies' health, the report said.

The insects’ decline can degrade other parts of the ecosystem, particularly since they’re major pollinators for both U.S. and Mexican food crops.

"The simple act of millions of butterflies migrating through our country and pollinating all these different plants is certainly important," Rickards says.

The United States, Canada, and Mexico each have their own plans for protecting monarchs. In Mexico, the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, works to reduce illegal logging and plant pollinator-friendly habitats.

Rickards is hopeful the monarchs will come back. "The population is very resilient," he said. "But it needs us humans.”

#Monarch Butterflies 🦋 🦋 🦋#Migratory Butterflies 🦋 🦋 🦋 Bouncing Back #Jessica Taylor Price #National Geographic

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interestinganimalkingdom · 1 year

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Black Lechwe of Zambia: Conservation Efforts and Threats-3

The black lechwe of zambia is a species of swamp deer native to Zambia and Zimbabwe. It is considered one of the most endangered large mammals on Earth.

Why Is The Black Lechwe Endangered?

The Black Lechwe of zambia is a species of antelope native to the wetlands of Botswana, Zambia, and Namibia. Its population is sadly dwindling due to multiple threats, making it an endangered species. Human activities such as overgrazing, hunting, and land conversion for agricultural use are all major drivers of the decline in Black Lechwe numbers. Overgrazing has lead to habitat destruction, reducing the food and shelter available to the species. Hunting has caused a decrease in the number of adults available to reproduce, leading to a decrease in population. Finally, land conversion for agricultural use is another major factor in their decline, as it reduces the amount of suitable habitat available for Black Lechwe populations. Conservation efforts must be implemented in order to prevent further decline of this species, including creating protected areas and educating local communities on the importance of preserving the species. Additionally, research needs to be conducted to understand more about the ecology of the Black Lechwe and its habitat requirements in order to better inform conservation efforts. If these steps are taken, then we may be able to reverse the decline in Black Lechwe populations before it is too late.

How Can We Help Save The Black Lechwe Of Zambia?

Unfortunately, the black lechwe population has been decreasing over the last few decades due to habitat loss, poaching, and illegal hunting. As a result, it is important that we take action to help protect this species. One way to do this is to support conservation organizations that are working to protect and restore the black lechwe's habitat. Additionally, it is important to educate people about the importance of this species and why it should be protected. Finally, conservationists are also advocating for stronger laws and regulations to help protect the black lechwe from illegal hunting and poaching. By taking these steps, we can help ensure that the black lechwe population does not continue to decline and can eventually be restored to its former numbers.

What Are The Threats To The Survival Of The Black Lechwe?

Its distinct black fur and long legs make it a unique animal, but its population is declining rapidly due to a variety of factors. Human activity is the primary threat to the Black Lechwe, from habitat destruction due to logging and farming to illegal hunting for their prized skins and meat. Global warming is also contributing to their decline by causing a decrease in their wetland habitats, making them more vulnerable to predators. The introduction of invasive species such as the Nile Perch into their habitats has also been detrimental to their numbers. Furthermore, the increasing spread of diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease is causing havoc among the Black Lechwe population. Conservation efforts are essential to ensure the survival of this species, including habitat preservation and protection from illegal hunting. It is also important to raise awareness of the threats faced by the Black Lechwe, so that more people can contribute to their conservation. With our help, this species can still have a chance of survival and continue to thrive in its native environment.

What Is Being Done To Save The Black Lechwe?

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has classified the Black Lechwe of zambia as Vulnerable, which means that its population is continuing to decline. As such, the IUCN has declared the species as globally threatened and are taking steps to protect it. Conservation organizations such as Save the Rhino International (SRI) and African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) are actively working to save the Black Lechwe by raising awareness of the species’ plight, conducting research and monitoring its population numbers, as well as creating protected habitats for the species. Additionally, these organizations are providing support for local communities to ensure their livelihoods are not dependent on the Black Lechwe. Furthermore, several countries are enacting legislation that bans hunting and trade of the species, while some countries provide incentives for landowners to protect their habitats. Through this collective effort, conservationists hope to ensure the long-term survival of this species. It is up to us all to help save the Black Lechwe from extinction by continuing to support conservation efforts and spreading awareness about this beautiful animal. - Black Lechwe Hunting in South Africa - Fascinating Facts About the Black Lechwe Antelope Referans: BLACK LECHWE IN ZAMBIA The Persecuted Black Lechwe of Zambia

Conclusion

The black lechwe of zambia is a beautiful, rare species that deserves our protection. If you would like to learn more about its conservation efforts, please visit the links provided in this article. Frequently asked Questions What Are Black Lechwe?Black lechwe are a subspecies of the sable antelope and are one of the most endangered species of antelope in the world. They are found only in the Zambezi River Basin in central Africa and have been classified as ‘endangered’ by the IUCN Red List.What Are the Future Directions for Black Lechwe Conservation?The future directions for black lechwe conservation will depend on a number of factors, including the prevention of poaching and other threats to survival, increased protection and awareness surrounding conservation efforts, as well as continued support from local communities and governments. Read the full article

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seattlegreenroofs · 4 years

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A Basic Guide to Northwestern Rooftop Gardens

Where to Start: Soil!

Did you know that soil type is extremely important when planting a new garden? Without the correct type of soil, plants can easily die and wither away. The perfect amount of nutrients is needed and is essential to ensuring a healthy and thriving garden. There are two components to garden soil: topsoil and compost. Compost is decomposed organic material used as a plant fertilizer, it is easily made by layering organic kitchen and yard waste in a bin, and then allowed to decompose. On the other hand, topsoil is the top layer of soil from the Earth. Specifically, in the Pacific North West, previous glacial cover has caused topsoil to be either filled with clay or sand, both not ideal in high concentrations. With clay, water does not drain easily, and the soil is hard to work with due to its dusty or clumpy nature. Seeds do not take easily to this type of soil and typically have a hard time emerging from the clay. With sand, nutrients and water drain too quickly and thus the plants have a hard time finding adequate nutrients to fuel their growth. The perfect mixture of sand and soil, ideal for growing plants, is called loam: easy to work with soil that drains well and maintains a perfect balance of moisture and nutrients. But, in the Seattle area where there is high rainfall, loam with more sand content is actually preferred, called sandy loam. This way, the rain can drain without pooling, but still retain the correct amount of nutrients. The color of the loam is also very important: the darker the soil, the more nutrients there are. Dark sandy loam topsoil combined with compost in the perfect ratio will create a flourishing garden!

When purchasing topsoil, follow this simple test that can be performed to find the perfect mixture of clay and sand:

If soil forms a compact ball that does not fall apart when poked → clay

If soil forms a compact ball that falls apart when poked → loam

If soil cannot form a ball and falls apart → sand

What We Recommend:

Sandy loam soil that is dark in color (rich in nutrients)

Buy locally here: https://dirtexchange.us/collections/compost/products/rain-garden-bio-retention

Start composting to make your own free compost!

Follow this link to learn more: https://learn.eartheasy.com/guides/composting/

Or buy from one of these vendors in the Seattle area: http://www.tilthalliance.org/learn/resources-1/compost/compostsources/at_download/file

Fill the beds with 8-12” of 60% topsoil, 30% compost, and 10% fertilizer (discussed below)

For a more in-depth look, go here:

https://www.kellogggarden.com/blog/soil/determining-your-soil-type-for-your-best-garden-soil/

https://www.parentmap.com/article/vegetable-gardening-in-the-pacific-northwest

Next: Seeds!

Seed type is also very important when planting a garden for the first time. We solely recommend native plants only, as native plants will require less care and provide a habitat for native wildlife, which will mostly be limited to birds and pollinators up on rooftops. It is important to avoid invasive species, as they will overtake your garden by outcompeting the rest of the plants for nutrients and leading to a dying garden. Since these gardens will have very minimal shade, we recommend plants that like the sun and wet soil from the rains.

What we recommend:

Non-edible plants:

Pacific crabapple

Salmonberry

Red elderberry

Clustered wild rose

Red-osier dogwood

Fireweed

Cascade Penstemon

Evergreen Huckleberry

Orange Honeysuckle

Common Camas

Edible plants:

Each plant has its own specific time to be planted for maximum growth, as listed below:

Mid-March:

peas

Late March/Early April:

Scallions, carrots, beets, cilantro

Mid-April:

Broccoli, chives, spinach, fennel bulbs, lettuce

Late April/Early May:

Dill, cilantro, carrots, cauliflower

May:

Summer squash, lettuce, pole beans

Early June:

Corn, cucumbers

For a more in-depth look at types of native plants, click on these links:

- https://depts.washington.edu/propplnt/Chapters/SeattleBellevue.htm

- https://www.greenseattle.org/native-plants-attracting-native-pollinators/

A Healthy Addition: Fertilizer!

Fertilizer can be very important when making sure your plants are getting enough nutrients. With too little fertilizer, plants can die or not grow fully, but with too much, it can alter the soil by creating a high salt concentration which can hurt helpful microorganisms that reside in the soil. It can also lead to rapid plant growth and a root system that is insufficient in supplying proper nutrients and water to the plants. There are many types of natural and organic fertilizer options that can be used to make a garden flourish. Synthetic fertilizers are known to deplete the soil of nutrients, making it unproductive, while organic fertilizers increase fungal and bacterial activity Although organic fertilizers work slower because it has to be broken down first, they are environmentally safe and don’t require a significant amount of fossil fuels to make unlike synthetic ones. Listed below are types of fertilizers that will maintain a proper balance of nutrients and avoid nutrient depletion.

What we recommend:

We recommend a 1:1:1 ratio of bone meal to blood meal to kelp meal to make fertilizer in a 1:10 ratio of fertilizer to soil

Blood meal

Buy here: https://waltsorganic.com/product/blood-meal/

Bone meal

Buy here: https://waltsorganic.com/product/fish-bone-meal/

Kelp meal

Buy here: https://waltsorganic.com/product/kelp-meal/

Manure (another possible option on its own)

A local manure match program is listed here: https://kingcd.org/programs/better-soils/manure-match/

For a more in-depth look, look at these websites:

- https://www.planetnatural.com/big-stink/

- https://www.seattletimes.com/life/lifestyle/the-foundations-of-fertilizer/

Finally: Pollinators!

On top of soil, pollinators are extremely important to ensure a healthy garden. Pollination is the transfer of pollen between plants that leads to fertilization and the growth of seeds and fruit/vegetable production. Without them, the garden with die and be unproductive. There are many types of pollinators, including bats, bees, beetles, birds, butterflies, flies, moths, and the wind. Each carry pollen from plant to plant and prefer specific plants over other. In these rooftop gardens, we will focus on intruding and maintaining bee populations, as they are becoming more and more endangered. Beehives can be implanted on rooves and provide a habitat for honeybees but aren’t necessary for all types of bees. Only honeybees live in colonies within beehives, while other types of bees live in the ground.

Native bees include:

Yellow-faced bumble bee

Western bumble bee

Masked bee

Sweat bee

Mason bee

Mining bee

What we recommend:

Native honey bees, which can be bought here:

https://cascadenaturalhoney.com/honeybees/

Native mason bees, which can be bought here:

https://masonbeesforsale.com/

Nesting material can be found here:

https://masonbeesforsale.com/collections/nesting-materials

https://masonbeesforsale.com/collections/houses

Follow these links to learn more:

- https://forterra.org/editorial/ode-six-native-bees

- https://www.nwcb.wa.gov/pdfs/PacificLowlandrx8.pdf

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almasexya · 5 years

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Carnivorous Plants and the Things I Know About Them

I've been kicking around the idea of making a post like this and I figured it was of enough general interest to folks on Tumblr to go for it.

One of the things I do is grow carnivorous plants, like these

From top left to bottom right we have a Venus Flytrap, a North American Pitcher Plant, a Sundew, and a Butterwort. All of these are pictures I've taken of plants during the growing season.

Now if you look at these weird looking plants you probably wouldn't expect them to be native to North America, but they are. You can find pitcher plants all over the southeast up to the northeast into Canada, flytraps in the Carolinas, and butterworts and sundews all over the continent.

These plants are a lot of fun and easy to grow once you understand their requirements, but before we get into that, I want to take a moment and explain how they came to be in the first place.

To keep it short, carnivorous plants are carnivorous because they grow in soils that are lacking in the nutrients plants need to put out new growth. Because of this, they evolved to find their nutrients a different way - by luring, trapping, and digesting insects. While these plants still photosynthesize, they supplement this with the nutrients they absorb from insects.

Now that we've got that out of the way, I'm going to go into the basics of growing them, point by point. A short disclaimer - I'm specifically talking about temperate North American plants, since they're what I have experience growing. I can provide basic info on how to take care of tropical plants like the southeast asian pitcher plants, but as of this post I don't have experience with them yet.

Soil: For carnivorous plants, a good soil mixture is a must. These plants grow in nutrient-poor marshes, and the soil they call home is constantly wet. The main ingredient in basically any carnivorous plant soil mix is sphagnum peat moss, which is slightly acidic. The second part of the mixture is often perlite or horticultural sand. Some nurseries use a mix of equal parts peat and perlite while others use 80% peat and 20% perlite, but I've had success with both. The most important thing to ensure is that your soil doesn't have any fertilizer added to it. Because carnivores grow in low nutrient soil, any kind of medium that contains fertilizer can actually kill them.

Water: The other vitally important part of the equation (and the one that kills lots of plants when incorrectly applied) is water. Generally, unless your tap water is soft, water carnivores with distilled or reverse osmosis water. The minerals in tap water or even bottled drinking water can eventually build up and kill your plant in the same way fertilized soil does. Carnivores love waterlogged soil, and some even get flooded in nature. To approximate this, set your plant in a tray of water no more than an inch or two high. This ensures your soil stays wet without having to constantly water it.

Containers: Plastic pots are your friend. Avoid terra cotta clay pots, since they can leech minerals into the soil and also tend to dry out your substrate faster. Glazed clay containers can also work. If you're using the tray system, make sure to buy pots with drainage holes, so the water can get in. Also, a trick that lets the water in but keeps the soil from escaping is to line the bottom of the pot with long-fibered sphagnum moss. If you go with an undrained container, make sure to keep the soil wet at all times, but allow some of the water to evaporate in order to keep the water table fluctuating.

Sunlight: Since carnivores evolved their leaves to catch insects, they're pretty poor at photosynthesis. As a result, these plants love sun - the more the better. Many a store bought flytrap has perished as a houseplant due to lack of sun, so if you can, put these plants outside, in the sunniest spot you can. Generally, it's good to give most carnivores around 6 hours of sunlight per day. Many can get by with 4, but they don't often thrive with that amount of light.

Dormancy: Plants that grow in temperate or warm temperate climates tend to buckle down and hibernate during the late fall and winter months, conserving energy until spring. Generally speaking, the large traps die off, or in some cases the plant dies down to the roots, or forms a small bud that rests on the ground. Plants grown outside respond to colder temperatures and shorter photoperiods, while plants grown inside usually need some help. If you're growing your plants on a windowsill or in a terrarium, move them somewhere cold or cut down on their heating, and also diminish the amount of daily light they receive. You can also slow down on watering, though they still need some water to get by.

Temperature: Temperate and warm temperate carnivores can tolerate a wide range of temperatures, despite what you might think. My pots survived the freak snowstorm the Pacific Northwest got this February without a single dead plant. Most species can tolerate temperatures up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit and down to 20 degrees, though not for prolonged periods of time. If you see long spells of hot or cold weather coming, try and move your plants to a protected area until they pass.

Feeding and Fertilizing: Now I know what you're thinking. Fertilizer? He just told us that stuff was death! And it often is, but there are ways to fertilize your plants. Generally, a fertilizer made for acid-loving plants can be diluted and applied to the leaves during the growing season. I use Maxsea 16-16-16 on plants that are too young to easily catch prey (diluted down to a half teaspoon per gallon) and haven't had issues. Try not to spray the soil unless you frequently water your plants from overhead, as the dreaded mineral buildup can still occur. That said, if your plants are outside, they'll fertilize themselves. You can also "feed" your plants insects using tongs - keep in mind that some plants require their prey to be alive in order to secrete digestive enzymes. I'll get into prey in more detail in other posts about specific types of plants.

Flowering and Propagation: For a lot of carnivorous plants, flowering is an exhausting effort that tends to deplete the energy they would use creating traps. As a general rule, if you're not interested in seed, clip the flower stalks off. Many plants can be propagated through leaf or root cuttings, which produce genetically identical plants. Some plants also clump and form their own divisions over time, meaning all you need to do to get more is wait for a year or so, depending on the age of the plant.

Pests: Carnivores can be targeted by various pests. For insecticides, I've seen neem oil recommended, as its generally less harmful to the plant and the environment. I haven't had to make much use of these yet, so my information on insecticides is a bit of a blind spot. Generally, try and stay away from soap insecticides and aerosols, and stick to less concentrated varieties. If you're dealing with squirrels or rodents digging up your plants, I found a generous sprinkling of cayenne pepper around the plants works wonders, and does no harm to the plants.

This is a basic rundown of carnivorous plants and how to take care of some of them. I must stress there's a ton of information out there - this post is geared more towards starter plants that are fairly forgiving and simple to grow.

So why grow carnivorous plants when you can just go out and buy some petunias?

They're active: Carnivores are showy, unique plants that can move on their own through some incredibly unique and complex evolutions. Watching a Venus Flytrap snap shut or a Sundew curl around an insect is a truly special thing to see.

They're a conversation piece: The relative rarity of carnivores in cultivation means the average person doesn't know much about them, despite maybe having heard of a Venus Flytrap before. A 12" pot of flytraps, sundews, and pitchers is a surefire way to grab attention.

They can control certain pests: Carnivorous plants can act as natural pest controllers. North American Pitcher Plants gorge themselves on flies and wasps, and considering some pitchers can grow over two feet tall, they can hold plenty of them. Sundews and butterworts specialize in catching smaller prey, such as fungus gnats, fruit flies, and even fleas. These plants can work as limited, natural pest controllers, though they won't eradicate a yellow jacket nest for you.

They're endangered in the wild: The wet, marshy habitats carnivores call home are rapidly dwindling due to improper land management and development. Some are nearly extinct in their home ranges, kept going through dedicated nurseries and attempts to naturalize them in other locations. By caring for carnivorous plants, you're raising awareness of these unique, underappreciated organisms and aiding in their conservation by keeping them alive.

Phew, I realize this was a lot, but I hope it was a fun read! Let me know what you think about carnivorous plants, or if you have any questions about them. I'm going to try and go into more detail on specific plants later, but for now, I wanted to bang out the basics.

If you're looking for more information, Flytrapcare.com is a great forum, and the r/savagegarden subreddit is very helpful as well. For books on the subject, the Savage Garden by Peter D'Amato is the go to source. Nurseries I've used and can vouch for are Sarracenia Northwest (located in Oregon) and California Carnivores (located in California).

#carnivorous plants #plantblr #my plants

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arinfmdxcs2 · 3 years

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HUMAN AND NATURE IN HISTORY – PERSPECTIVES AND SHIFT OF INTEREST.

It may be argued that the current western relationship between humanity and nature has been compromised by technology, growth of industry and exploitation of the lands resources – and this increasing detachment between human and nature has enabled and nurtured a perspective that humans are not part of the natural world and therefore it is not responsible for the detrimental impacts we may have on the earth. The Industrial Revolution, especially in the mid-18th century, is arguably the origin of a society where monetary value drives the societal hierarchy and where capitalism acts a destructive force on the land we inhibit.

The label ‘Anthropocene’ for the current geological epoch, dominated by man, was proposed by Paul J Crutzen and Eugene R. Stoermer in article ‘The “Anthropocene”’ from (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000[1]) Within this text, the origin of the epoch is identified in the “latter part of the 18th century” chosen due to the increasing global impact humanity has on the earth, and that it was also the same period in which J. Watt´s invented the steam engine in 1784. In a Macmillan magazine from 2002, P. Crutzen provides a more in-depth explanation – “Because of these anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide, global climate may depart significantly from natural behaviour for many millennia to come. It seems appropriate to assign the term ‘Anthropocene’ to the present, in many ways human-dominated, geological epoch” (Crutzen, 2002 [2]) Here, he describes the trend of human population increase and the ultimate unsustainable supply and demand it causes. He states that “Unless there is a global catastrophe — a meteorite impact, a world war or a pandemic — mankind will remain a major environmental force for many millennia.” This introduction of the Anthropocene era perhaps shaped philosophical and eco-political perspectives during this time– providing a scientific label for issues around epistemology. Several scholars have since debated the origins of the anthropogenic age: radioactive fallout from the ‘great acceleration, colonialism and trade, industrial revolution and even medieval processes.

There is widespread coverage on the implications of the Anthropocene in contemporary media and articles. Several of these highlight that human reflection is important in the development of a positive Anthropocene, where we can’t reverse the damage that we have caused but instead shift the direction away from ultimate destruction; one example of this is the ‘Ecomodernist Manifesto’ (An Ecomodernist Manifesto, 2015[3]) which envisions a role that humanity can play in the development of a better Anthropocene, it argues that technology, public interest, and government investment can help to refocus the direction of our power as humanity. This document is interesting in the fact that it doesn’t condemn the use of technology, as many other writings have, but holds the view that there is an importance in the use of scientific advancements for the future of the planet. It should be considered however, that a bad Anthropocene, is rooted in the misplacement of historical and contemporary technology – there is still a criticism within this articles perspective through stating that we need to fix the mistakes that we have made. This concept of a ‘good Anthropocene’ demands stability and protection for the natural world, without stunting or reversing the developments of humans. The text explores the dualistic view of technological advancements, how medicine has thrived but also the implications on nature and nonhuman entities. For example, “Populations of many mammals, amphibians, and birds have declined by more than 50 percent in the past 40 years alone. More than 100 species from those groups went extinct in the 20th century, and about 785 since 1500.” The manifesto criticises a world that we have created that regards nature as unimportant, highlighted by the way in which humans are still dependant on it, a human ignorance that has led to a paradox of balance. The concept that humans need to reinvent systems in order to accommodate growing populations and fix devastating impacts of mass industrialisation is becoming a huge topic of discussion, there has been some exploration into developing our technology towards a sustainable path, instead of abandoning it all together. In Vol 66 of Biotechnology in Agriculture and Forestry (Widholm and Nagata, 2010[4]) J. Widholm and T. Nagata explain the notions of regenerative agriculture; “We believe that the proper course of action should not begin by asking industrial agriculture to provide a sustainable source of energy, but rather to first ask whether biofuels can help make agriculture sustainable.” (Page 369) In this way, scientists are aiming to mimic natural dynamics of production in a way that sustains efficiency for human consumption. Another perspective held by E, Ellis states that humans should embrace the transformations and shifts of science “As the scale and power of human systems continue to increase at accelerating rates, we are awakening to a new world of possibilities — some of them frightening. And yet our unprecedented and growing powers also allow us the opportunity to create a planet that is better for both its human and nonhuman inhabitants.” (Ellis, E. 2011) [5] Whilst recognising the negative impact we have on the earth; she argues that the sustainability of humanity is not at risk.

In critical writing regarding the Anthropocene and our environmental crisis, there is often a distinct argument that humans are flawed by nature. One example of this is seen through the statement “The environment is promoted everywhere as the great ‘Save the World’ issue, BUT the truth is we have only been focusing on the symptoms of the devastation of our world and the disintegration of society that is happening everywhere we look, not the cause, which is us humans—our egocentric, competitive, selfish and aggressive behaviour… We humans suffer from a consciousness-derived, psychological human condition, not an instinct-controlled animal condition—our condition is unique to us fully conscious humans” (J. Griffith, 2011)[6] This communicates the perspective that there is a flaw in the morals that have enabled humans to harness such great power and allow most of the western world to have an almost apathetic disconnection with nature. It is crucial to understand the unique role that humans have within the environment – where we have the intense power that can enable us to destroy our landscape, but we are conscious of this, and can control our developed technologies towards a direction of healing, rather than destruction and environmental degradation. Humanity needs to achieve stability for our species as well as our environment. We are in a position where it is our obligation. Geoffrey Garver and Peter Brown (G. Garver and P. Brown, Humans and Nature: The Right Relationship, 2021)[7] argue that humans have chosen to align with the wrong relationship with nature, and that there is need for reinvention; “Greed and the constant stimulation of new desires that feed it have increasingly become acceptable, even glorified. Simultaneously, modern industrial activity has embraced a pathological gigantism, increasing corporate consolidations, and ruthlessly crushing the small-business players, as well as the natural systems on which all economic activity depends” leading to a variety of impacts such as bleaching coral reefs, toxic chemicals, poverty, overpopulation, extinction, and deforestation, ultimately leaving us in an unstable balance with the earth – one example they used was the development of Alberta tar sands, and industrial project that has increased even projects within humanity (crime rates). This article states that we need to fix a relationship with the commonwealth of life, where an entirely different system needs to be in place – even the beginnings of our journey to the right relationship has had negative impacts “They often still serve wrong relationships”. Garver and Brown argue that the symbolic value of money has tipped the balance between what we should consider as wealth, our planet. Another unnamed scholar from May 1960, also shared the same perspective of criticism. The Relationship of Man and Nature (Vol 41 No. 4)[8] provided the viewpoint that a revision in the frameworks of industry and society is needed, which is unfortunately still a key theme of modern environmentalism. This text emphasises the importance of humanity acknowledging its mistakes of broken association with nature, ironically, before it’s too late. 60 years on and the industrial and technological developments of mankind has still not been changed in a significant degree, and it can now be argued that it is in fact too late to restore the balance. The impacts we have had are irreversible; “To subdue nature, to bend its forces to our will, has been the acknowledged purpose of mankind since human life began, but the time has come for a revision of our conception of the benefits and responsibilities of holding dominion over all other created things…We need to make the most of all nature as an ally.” The text again, highlights the instability of our relationship with nature, an imbalance that has gone beyond our control.

Previously, the relationship between man and nature revolved around balance, even within contexts where nature had dominance over man, this has since been dramatically skewed. The rapid growth of industry and technological advancements enabled humans to dominate and manipulate landscapes for profit. The distance from nature in urbanised society increased as the growth of cities resulted in huge migrations towards these central points, ultimately causing a demand for resources to increase. Humans, through becoming the dominant force, have degraded, and disrupted natural habitats that have supported other life forms – we are placing the ecosystems in a stress state through imbalance, evidenced through mass species extinction, global warming/ the melting of glaciers, and the destruction of the landscape. As human shifted from sustainable economy and agriculture to one based on greed and exploitation of the land, ignorance of our role within nature has also developed to a state of severity. It may be argued that human has always had an impact on the environment, prior to modern technological advancements, and that this current development was inevitable in the gradual flow of the earth – however these developments have accelerated biological processes on a global large scale faster than it could handle. For example, Simon L. Lewis and Mark A. Maslin in (Lewis and Maslin, 2015, Defining the Anthropocene)[9] argue that humans have always had an impact on the natural environments. In this case they provide evidence that industrial type production has been noted in earlier timelines of humanity preceding the industrial revolution; “the impacts of Roman Empire copper smelting are detectable in a Greenland ice core at around 2,000 yr BP.” Though it is the recent large scale industry that has caused such drastic impact – the great acceleration, nuclear fallout, global trade, and colonialism are explored as the potential origins to the Anthropocene. Exploitation has encouraged divisions between man and nature, and even man with itself – these relationships have become economic on a large scale and has effectively destabilised the fundamentals of ecology. E-Waste and other volumes of by-product have also impacted the balance of the natural world, where humans have released harmful and toxic products into the atmosphere, oceans, and landfills. The issues regarding the elimination of industrial waste have become more and more complex and it is this intense distress that we have put on the earth that evidences large-scale production processes as poorly planned. In ‘The Closing Circle: Nature, Man and Technology’ (Commoner, 1971)[10] Barry Commoner criticises modern civilised notions of nature by comparison to indigenous or native people, emphasising that they can achieve a knowledge of their environment that modern science never will. Of course, scientific studies provide data and development, but it is with this primal focus on science that we have disregarded the fundamentals of the biosphere, where man and nature are stabilised. He states, “We have broken out of the circle of life, converting its endless cycles into man-made, linear events: oil is taken from the ground, distilled into fuel, burned in an engine, converted thereby into noxious fumes, which are emitted into the air. At the end of the line is smog.” It is within this text that Commoner outlines the principles in which ecology has been manipulated and exploited, initially with the idea that we have destabilised the relationship, the idea that everything is connected with one another in the ecosystem and our great assaults on the land have significantly shifted the balance. Secondly, he outlines the idea that human’s production waste (such as batteries, which ultimately emits mercury vapour into the atmosphere) does not fit into the natural system, again, we have disrupted the equilibrium. The other principles outlined are that man-made changes in the system is likely detrimental, and that our exploitative approach to the land does not come with no consequence, it will have implications. Commoner states, “We who call ourselves advanced seem to have escaped from this kind of dependence on the environment…In the eager search for the benefits of modern science and technology we have become enticed into a nearly fatal illusion: that through our machines we have at last escaped from dependence on the natural environment.”[11]

There is a central paradox in this asymmetrical exchange between human and nature – by which humans increasingly become separated from nature and encourage the view that we have transitioned into a superior position – whilst that superiority holds some aspects of truth, it is the mismanagement of this power that has enabled the forces to once again shift, the devastation on the environment that humans have caused will most likely be the downfall of humans once again. In addition, it is with this concept that while direct reliance on nature diminishes, indirect dependence remains, even increases. “While he is getting to know more and more about nature, and on this basis transforming it, man's power over nature progressively increases, but in the same process, man comes into more and more extensive and profound contact with nature, bringing into the sphere of his activity growing quantities of matter, energy and information.” (A. Spirkin, Man in the Realm of Nature)[12]

Recent scholars have developed detailed discussions regarding the question of where humans are placed within the earths balance of nature. Peter H. Kahn explores his relationship with nature through the concept of biophilia, the hypothesis that there is a “fundamental, genetically based human need and propensity to affiliate with life” (P. Kahn, 1999) [13] This hypothesis of Biophilia was introduced and popularized by E.O Wilson in 1984; it describes the innate connection between human and nature based on hunter-gatherer roots. In this text, Kahn questions the extent at which humans can use our land, without exploiting it – he uses carpentry as an example, a practice that allows humans to sustain relationship with the earth, but also the damages it through deforestation. He continues, then, to recognise that there is both beauty and negativity in both humans and nature, and it is this balance of forces that allow us to sustain a symbiotic relationship. "They are external embodiments of my natural creeps and shudders at the thought of pain and death (P. Kahn, 1999) [14] The source ‘Why the concept of Anthropocene is relevant for historians of technology’ holds the view that nature, in today’s technological society, acts as a provider for a lot of resources, humans need to continue developing – yet humans, being conscious with moral autonomy, can be perceived as separate; “Nature remains thus as a detached and passive provider, a background against which human history unfolds.” (M. Diogo, I. Louro, D. Scarso, 2017, Uncanny Nature. pp 25) [15], Technology, in its large-scale state, contaminates the essence of what true nature is, this third link in the relationship between human and nature has implemented a concept through artificial representations, that we can nurture our individual relationships with nature through digitalised portrayals of what nature is – in this way, common manipulation of reality has skewed modern western perspectives about nature. Some scholars, such as Derrida in “The Animal That Therefore I Am” (J.Derrida, 2002) [16] argue that the meat industries and normalisation of mass reproduction and slaughter, can be compared to human genocide, by this comparison – Derrida argues that the autonomy we have over the natural environment can be easily flawed by recognising the same patterns that contemporary industries provide. This can be regarded as an inappropriate comparison – by which a lot of modern readers may find this comparison offensive to both victims of genocide, and people who partake in the meat industry. This allows us to then explore how the boundaries of human-nature relationship are seen through contemporary perspective, and how these may be seen as hypocritical. Despite the controversy here, it renders questions about ethical consumption of our natural resources and biophilic/phobic tendencies.

[1] Crutzen, P. and Stoermer, E., 2000. Sustaining Earth’s life support systems – the challenge for the next decade and beyond. Global Change,

[2] Crutzen, P., 2002. Geology of Mankind. Macmillan, (415).

[3] 2015. An Ecomodernist Manifesto. 1st ed. [PDF] Available at: < http://www.ecomodernism.org> [Accessed 15 April 2021].

[4] J. Widholm and T. Nagata, Plant biotechnology for sustainable production of energy and coproducts, Biotechnology in Agriculture and Forestry, 2010, (66)

[5] Ellis, E. 2011. The Planet of No Return: Human Resilience on an Artificial Earth. The Breakthrough Journal no.2 (Fall 2001) pages 37-44.

[6] J. Griffith, 2011, The Human Condition, Available at : https://www.humancondition.com/save-the-world/

[7] G. Garver and P. Brown, Humans and Nature: The Right Relationship, Minding nature, 2009 (2) Available at: https://www.humansandnature.org/humans-nature-the-right-relationship

[8] 1960, No Author, The Relationship of Man and Nature (Vol 41 No. 4)

[9] Lewis, S. and maslin, M., 2015. Defining the Anthropocene. Nature, (519).

[10] Commoner, B. 1971. The Closing Circle: Nature, Man and Technology. pp.1-24.

[11] Commoner, B., 1971. The Closing Circle: Nature, Man and Technology. pp. 6

[12] A. Spirkin, Dialectical Materialism (5) On the Human Being and Being Human: Man in the Realm of Nature. Accessible by https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/spirkin/works/dialectical-materialism/ch05-s03.html

[13] P, Kahn. 1999, The Human Relationship with Nature: Development and Culture pp9

[14] P, Kahn. 1999, The Human Relationship with Nature: Development and Culture pp46

[15] M. Diogo, I. Louro, D. Scarso, 2017, Uncanny Nature: Why the concept of Anthropocene is relevant for historians of technology (23)

[16] J. Derrida, 2002, The Animal That Therefore I Am (more to follow)

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jemimacaleyfmpyear1 · 3 years

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As we are looking at mandalas and mandalas in nature, this is a good example to look at Damian Hirsts butterfly kaleidoscope. This is the first kaleidoscope painting, ‘it’s a wonderful world’ was created in 2001. Originally inspired by a Victorian tea tray found by hirst, the works are made by placing thousands of different coloured butterfly wings in intricate geometric patterns into house hold paint. Works from the kaleidoscope series were first exhibited as part of ‘romance in the age of uncertainty’ at white cube, London, in 2003. In 2007, hirst presented a major series of the paintings in the solo show, ‘superstition’ at gagosian gallery, London Davies street and Beverly Hills. The kaleidoscope paintings reference the spiritual symbolism of the butterfly, used by the Greeks to depict psych, the soul, and in Christian imagery to signify the resurrection. The works are reminiscent of, and even sometimes directly copy stained glass windows. Their titles similarly often reference Christian iconography, and hirst chose to name a collection of paintings in 2008 after entries in the book of psalms. Whilst the butterfly is one of hirsts most enduring universal triggers, in the kaleidoscope paintings he differs from his use of it in earlier works. Previously, the inclusion of live butterflies, as in the installation ‘in and out of love’ or whole dead ones in butterfly monochrome paintings, was partially an exploration of the way the real butterfly can destroy the ideal kind of love; the symbol exists apart from the real thing. Recalling someone once saying to him: “butterflies are beautiful, but it’s a shame they have disgusting hairy bodies in the middle” hirst chose to use only the iridescent wings in the kaleidoscope paintings, divorcing the butterflies from the real thing. Titles such as the most beautiful thing in the world.

Damian Hirst has recently unveiled a new series of his butterfly wing paintings and the internet is ablaze with debate. Butterflies, dead or alive, have appeared in the artists work since the late 1980s and has produced very similar paintings to the ones now exhibited at white cube in London since the mid 2000s these works have always, to some degree, attracted criticism from vegan and animal rights groups, but the latest response - on Twitter, in letters to the guardian and in a review by times art critic Rachel Campbell Johnson - seems more widespread. A sign of the times perhaps: our growing awareness of climate change, and of the sixth great extinction currently underway. The point has been made loud and clear: killing butterflies for the making of art is unethical. Some people can subscribe to that view; I understand where it comes from, as a scholar who specialises in the representation of animals and plants in art, people have dwelt extensively on the cases in which the creatures themselves are involved - on the beauty and the horror. But what strikes people is that as unprecedented about the recent criticism is its superficiality: the lack of acknowledgment that most artwork in our museums are smeared with countless animal deaths. From this perspective, hirsts works are nothing new. The main difference between these animal deaths and hirsts geometrically arranged butterfly wings lies in the artists honesty. His work reveals how the archievements of art have depended on our willingness to sacrifice the lives of animals. Or perhaps more disturbingly, hirst shows us that aesthetic beauty can derive from so called acts of cruelty towards animals and nature. How do we come to terms with our sense of guilt with all this, at this point in time? It is worth noting that butterflies have long been celebrated in human culture. Hirst has also killed countless flies in his work, but nobody cares about the death of flies because we associate them with waste, death, disease and decay. In fact, a whole industry is devoted to their extermination. Yet, from the perspective of biodiversity conservation, flies and butterflies are equally essential to the wellbeing of this planet. More importantly, the butterflies hirst used to create the works currently on view are farmed and not caught in the wild. In 2003, the artist became the biggest importer of exotic butterflies in the uk. His dried butterfly wings are purchased in bulk from farms in the tropics. Where a thriving industry had been established to curb the illegal butterfly trade that has destroyed many ecosystems around the world. The victorians were far from the last butterfly collectors and rare specimens of certain species, which poaches collect using deadly insecticide bombs, can fetch up to 30,000 dollars on the black market. The farm that breed hirsts butterflies support the environment and have dramatically reduced habitat destruction by providing poaches with legal and regulated work and by establishing thriving tourist economies in areas that desperately needed an economic boost.

I personally think it can be cruel and unfair but at the same time the final piece is beautiful and inspirational, also my dad collects butterfly taxidermy that is very much the same thing so I’m not too sure what I feel about it as I support my dad on buying and collecting them but I definitely understand why some people would think it’s murderous and cruel.

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wineanddinosaur · 4 years

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Why the Wines of the Future Will Be Made From Hybrid Grapes

Most of the wines drunk today are made from a single species of grape vine, Vitis vinifera. Through time, various crossings — both accidental and deliberate — have given rise to thousands of different varieties from this species, each with its own unique flavor signatures and preferred habitats. So we have the likes of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Merlot, Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Sauvignon Blanc — all from vinifera, but all distinctly different. It’s estimated that around 98 percent of all wine consumed today is made from vinifera vines. So what of the 2 percent that doesn’t come from this species? It turns out that there’s an interesting story here: We may be about to see the rise of the hybrids.

What Is a Hybrid?

The term “hybrid” refers to vines that are the result of a cross between two species. The term is used as a catch-all, but frequently involves crossing native vines from North America or Asia with vinifera; however, it can also refer to accidental crosses of native vine species. When Europeans first traveled to North America they took their vines with them, but the vines failed to flourish in their new home.

The problem was a set of diseases that European vines had no resistance to, but that American vines had co-evolved with. These included the root-munching aphid phylloxera and two fungal diseases called powdery and downy mildew. Later, in the mid- to late-19th century, these diseases would jump to Europe and cause havoc. Phylloxera, in particular, almost ended wine production worldwide until a solution was found. The fix involved grafting the European vines onto rootstock from American vines. The only way to deal with the two fungal pests turned out to be spraying the vines with sulfur and copper, two chemical treatments that are still used today.

Vinifera Isn’t Very Green

The legacy of this transatlantic disease spread is that the vinifera varieties we all know and love aren’t very sustainable. To keep disease at bay vineyards need to be sprayed many times each season, either with the more traditional remedies of copper and sulfur, or with more modern systemic fungicides. Now, though, we are seeing growing concerns about the environmental impact of viticulture, and this is leading some winegrowers to explore the potential for working with hybrids that carry natural resistance to these fungi. The problem? The wine world still has a horrible bias against hybrids, which are regarded as a low-quality option compared with vinifera.

Before grafting was proposed as a solution, one idea for reviving phylloxera-ravaged vineyards was to replant with hybrid vines. Lots of work went into breeding them — the so-called French-American hybrids, but no one was convinced by the quality of the wines they produced. They were described as having a “foxy” taste, a term that has been misunderstood: They have a distinctive flavor, and this is described as foxy, but the term was originally used to describe the fondness foxes have for grapes from Vitis labrusca, an American species, rather than any resemblance between the wines and the smell of foxes. Methyl anthranilate and 2-aminoacetophenone are the aroma compounds that are typical of labruscas (such as Concord, Niagara, Catawba, and Delaware), which do have a distinctive flavor. But this isn’t shared by all hybrids.

The Hybrid-Vinifera Divide

New York’s Finger Lakes is one region where the hybrid-vinifera divide is quite clear. Before Prohibition, New York State had a thriving wine industry that dominated U.S. wine production — based entirely on hybrids. But after Prohibition ended, attention shifted west to California, which quickly came to dominate the U.S. scene, in part because of its more liberal liquor laws. New York carried on making wine with hybrids, but in the 1950s and ’60s Dr. Konstantin Frank, an immigrant from Ukraine, encouraged the planting of vinifera in the more favored sites — those that were protected from the extreme cold of winter by proximity to one of the lakes.

This was a great success, and now the likes of Riesling, Chardonnay, and Cabernet Franc are doing very well in the Finger Lakes. It has, however, created a two-speed industry where the hybrids make the cheap, sweet commercial wines and vinifera vines make more serious dry wines that have built the current reputation of the region. Hybrids are still grown here because there are some sites that get too cold in the winter for vinifera to grow. Another advantage of hybrids is that they’re tough and can survive much lower temperatures without winter damage, which may help them gain traction as hybrids continue to grow in popularity.

In many regions where this winter hardiness isn’t called for, hybrids that once formed the mainstay of the industry have almost disappeared. New Zealand is a good example. Back in 1960, six of its top 10 varieties were hybrids, including its top three — Albany Surprise, Baco 22A, and Seibel 5455. And in Canada’s Niagara region, the only significant relics of its hybrid past are Vidal (used mainly for ice wine) and Baco Noir.

PIWIs: A Way Forward?

A recent trip to Germany’s Mosel wine region told a different story, though. I drove up the slopes behind the village of Kröv, in a region that’s famed for producing some of the world’s top Rieslings. This is where winegrower Jan Matthias Klein has plans to plant a vineyard with a difference, in a place called Kröv Paradies. Rather than Riesling, the mainstay of the vineyards in the area, he’s going to plant two hectares with PIWI vines over the next couple of years. He showed me the plot where the schist soils are already under preparation.

What are PIWIs? The name stands for Pilzwiderstandsfähige and they are specially bred fungus-resistant grape varieties with at least 85 percent vinifera in their genomes. These are technically hybrids, but the people behind PIWIs don’t like you to refer to them that way. PIWI International is the organization responsible for promoting these varieties. Founded in 1999, it now has more than 550 members from 21 countries in Europe and North America.

Klein makes two lines of wines in his winery, Staffelter Hof. The first is a more classical range, from organically grown grapes. And then there’s his line of natural wines, which have cartoon-like labels and are made without any sulfite additions. But even though he farms organically, he — like everyone else there — has to spray copper and sulfur far more often than he’d like to. The PIWIs could be a solution: They’re bred for resistance to the fungal diseases that cause so many problems for vinifera. He works naturally in the winery, and this would allow him to work much more naturally in the vineyard, too. His plan is to fence off this two-hectare plot and have sheep doing the weed control. “No machines will be allowed in the vineyard,” he says. “I want to work more naturally and less intrusively, and I want to reduce the CO2 footprint.”

These new varieties are doing well in blind tastings locally. They are still quite niche. “Quality-wise they’re on a par with traditional varieties,” says Klein. “Maybe not Riesling,” he adds with a smile. The varieties he will plant are Muscaris, Souvignier Gris, Sauvitage, Sauvignac, Saturnois, and Donauriesling.

Not far from Kröv is Traben-Trarbach, where Markus Boor of Weingut Louis Klein is also taking an interest in PIWIs. His focus isn’t on making natural wines, but about 10 percent of his production is PIWIs. His varieties include Sauvignac, Donauriesling, Cabernet Blanc, and Johannita.

“It’s the future,” he says. “For anything other than Riesling we have to plant PIWIs.” A tasting through the cellar showed that there’s nothing second-rate about these PIWIs. Typically, he says, he’ll spray these vines two or three times a year, whereas the Riesling needs spraying eight to 12 times. “We’ve had years without spraying the PIWIs,” Boor says, although it is necessary to spray occasionally just so they keep their resistance.

Interestingly, though, it could be the natural wine movement that helps propel hybrids into the mainstream. In Vermont, Deirdre Heekin and Caleb Barber’s La Garagista winery has achieved global acclaim on the back of wines made by new-generation hybrids such as La Crescent, Marquette, Frontenac Gris, Frontenac Blanc, and Frontenac Noir, which are well suited to the humid summers and freezing winters of the local climate. And in New York’s Finger Lakes, a collaboration pair of pét-nats made by Nathan Kendall and natural wine guru sommelier Pascaline Lepeltier under the Chëpika label, made with Delaware and Catawba, has made people realize that even the old-school 19th-century labruscas can make something sought after.

It may take some time for the wine world to open its mind to resistant varieties, but the current situation isn’t sustainable. Our longtime addiction to Vitis vinifera grapes — used in the vast majority of today’s wines — with its attendant spray regimes, is simply no longer justifiable. It’s time to recognize the progress made by the grape breeders, and to get behind these new resistant varieties.

The article Why the Wines of the Future Will Be Made From Hybrid Grapes appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/wines-of-future-hybrid-grapes/

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johnboothus · 4 years

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Why the Wines of the Future Will Be Made From Hybrid Grapes

What Is a Hybrid?

Vinifera Isn’t Very Green

The Hybrid-Vinifera Divide

PIWIs: A Way Forward?

The article Why the Wines of the Future Will Be Made From Hybrid Grapes appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/wines-of-future-hybrid-grapes/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/why-the-wines-of-the-future-will-be-made-from-hybrid-grapes

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alexsmitposts · 4 years

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BC: US-funded “Disinformation Oversight” of Bio Weapons Prevention Programmes in Georgia BC stands for NEO’s Banned Classic. This article was originally published by our journal on 09.10.18 For some reason, this article is missing from Google search results. Since this article remains pretty relevant to those geopolitical events that are taking place on the geopolitical stage today, we deem it possible to present it to our readers once again. Should it go missing again, you may be confident that you will see it republished by NEO once more, should it still remain relevant by that time. The Richard Lugar Lab is fast becoming a topic of household conversation in both Georgia and the Russian Federation, because increasing numbers of people care that it is not a public health facility, as claimed, but a threat to the population and humanity as we know it. The Caucasus region is an ideal location for the United States to outsource its ‘grey zone’ research to. Many of the most ‘attractive’ viruses and bacteria for weaponisation occur naturally in this region, so they can be studied in their natural habitat. The region is also known for its thriving black market economy and trafficking, as the lack of democracy and a civil society makes it easier to hide things from the world. But what is now concerning US officials is the attention Russia is paying to the topic of bio weapons and other related medical programmes. What has been uncovered so far demonstrates that the question is NOT whether the US is in violation of the 1972 Biological Weapons Treaty BUT to what degree. The US has long tried to deflect attention from these programmes. American journalist and Bureau Chief for Veterans Today in Georgia, Jeffrey Silverman, a long time resident of Georgia, is again the cross fire for his articles and series of recent TV interviews, having endured a long series of indignities, and downright illegal acts, at the hands of his own government and embassy. But the new attacks on Silverman coincide with recent revelations in the Russian media. Igor Giorgadze, the former State Security Minister of Georgia, dropped a bombshell in mid September when he leaked documents containing information about “a laboratory located near Tbilisi named after US Senator Richard Lugar”, and how some experiments had turned deadly. Various media groups describe such breaking stories as recurring disinformation, and further claim that there is no factual evidence that the US is building biological laboratories in the Caucasus region in order to use it as a testing site. The same media groups also denied that the US was losing the Vietnam War and declared the well documented CIA human rights abuses in places like Paraguay weren’t happening either. But Giorgadze, a former Georgian State Security Minister, and Silverman beg to differ. They claim that such labs and related medical projects may have secretly conducted experiments on people, some of which have had fatal outcomes. Right or Wrong Person to Ask? Giorgadze has asked Donald Trump to launch an investigation into the experiments conducted by the laboratory. This really has some in Georgia concerned, as Trump is no fan of Big Pharma. He recently stated that the much touted flu shot is the greatest scam in medical history, created by Big Pharma to make money off vulnerable people and make them sick. US-government funded media watchdogs and strong-arm agencies have fought back by using Homeland Security to harass Silverman when he travelled to and from the United States earlier this year, when he was finally allowed to make his first trip home in over 14 years. On both arrival and departure he was subjected to repeated body and bag searches, including seizures of his phone and personal documents, in direct violation of the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution. Such frontal attacks on this journalist date back to when the first stories about the Lugar lab, and the nefarious research linked with it, broke in Georgia in 2013. As he has since backed up many of his allegations with actual documents, there has been a concerted effort to discredit him, not only in Georgia but in the international media. Silverman continues to publish in the Georgian language media, and has described how the concentration camp patients of Nazi Doctor Joseph Mengele can be compared to the civilians residing close to the Lugar laboratory, as they [too] did not understand the threat they were under until they were placed in the medical experiment section death camps—when it was too late. “I am warning those who live near the Lugar Laboratory that they are under a big risk. The locals who settled there were misled that this was an ordinary laboratory and nothing else.” Georgy Iremidze, head of the Georgian based Patriot news agency, which is labelled pro Russian by the same detractors, adds to the debate: “On paper, the lab is run by the Georgian government, or rather the Ministry of Health. But in reality, it is operated by the American government. The idea is that, if something goes wrong, the Georgian government will take the blame so that the American government can stay under the radar”. A Lot for Nothing The United States has provided a total of USD 350 million for the construction and technical equipping of the laboratory. In 2013 the laboratory was allegedly subordinated to the National Center for Disease Control and Public Health (NCDC), and from 2018 the Government of Georgia will assume responsibility for the full funding and operation of the Lugar center and laboratory network, or so we are told. However it is only the US which has an interest in building such laboratories. Other countries would face sanctions from more powerful neighbours, who can build worse facilities of their own, for doing so. The US wants to flout the Biological Weapons Convention and then claim, if caught, that this is something only dubious, less-developed, “ignorant” countries do, as it usually does when questions are asked in places like Syria and Iraq. The Lugar Laboratory is located not far from Tbilisi International Airport. This means that loading weaponised agents and moving viruses and bacteria around the world is expedited. It is conceivable that the United States may be trying to continue its losing battle in Syria by using biological and chemical weapons, as military planes, which are based at NATO airfields, have been landing at the airport with increasing regularity for no other apparent reason. The same deadly and especially dangerous pathogens could also be targeted, as an aggressive act, against Turkey and the Russian Federation. The US has a history of doing this, and we might recall the Swine Flu outbreak in Russia 12 years ago. Even unsuspecting humans could be weaponized and board civilian fights, just as was described in Station 11, a work of fiction, and how the Georgian flu killed over 95 percent of the world’s population. Emily St. John Mandel’s fourth novel, “Station Eleven,” begins with a spectacular tragedy on a considerably vaster scale arrives in the form of a flu pandemic so lethal that, within weeks, most of the world’s population has been killed. It is standard medical practice that nothing that is injected into the body should be used past its expiration date. But the US military, and other organisations like MARFOREUR, USAMRIID, ClinicalRM, WRAIR, and DTRA, are being accused of giving many such preparations to allied countries as “aid”. They have been widely used on the general population in Georgia, even children, without the victims’ full knowledge and informed consent. When questions are asked, it funnels this aid not through medical bodies but TMC Global Professional Services. This company has overseas offices in nine countries throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and two offices in the US, in Virginia and New Mexico. Most of its work is as a US Government contractor on Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) programmes, with national laboratories and other DoD customers. For example, it manages an international project at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant site (ChNPP). Too Many Roads Lead to Rome The Myth Detector claims to have debunked “disinformation” spread around the Hepatitis C elimination programme on several occasions—but it fails to mention the nexus of this programme to TMC. Nor does it give, or investigate, the technical backgrounds of those doing the debunking, who just post pre-written statements provided by their Embassy contacts or PR staff working in the Lugar lab. It is not difficult to expose those actually working in these military projects at the management level. Silverman was once hired by International Crisis Group, ICG, and the French government to look at the links of these researchers. He soon discovered how the Lugar and partner projects are connected to American, European and other scientific centres. All the highly skilled professionals in the TMC office in Georgia left in 2010 to form a new organisation, Sigma. The most high profile of these was Richard Mah, who had worked at Los Alamos. You do not leave the golden handcuffs, and diamond pension, of a USD defence contractor to start a company from scratch unless you feel too compromised to stay with that contractor. But nobody is interviewing Mah, or the main TMC person in Georgia nowadays, Giorgi Begiashvili, before claiming “disinformation”. Day Late and Fact Short The US can get away with violations of treaty law because what it addresses has been superceded by new developments and changed beyond recognition. It has often been observed that when a certain narcotic is made illegal, another one comes along which is equally deadly but gets round the laws as written. Claims that any treaty violations are accidental are difficult to disprove because such violations are so widespread as to be unavoidable. The US bio weapons legislation is codified in Section 817 of the Patriot Act. It effectively gives the US immunity from violating its own bioweapons laws, despite the fact that such a national law cannot override an international treaty that country is bound by. Specifically, it states that “the prohibitions contained in this section shall NOT apply to any duly authorised US governmental activity.” Prior to enactment of the Patriot Act, federal law proscribed the use of biological agents or toxins as weapons, in 18 U.S.C. 175. This outlaws possession of a type or quantity of biological agents or toxins that cannot be justified for peaceful purposes. In short, what is being done for the purpose of military use, offensive, is now being justified under the guise of peaceful purposes. Regardless of the ledger of truth and innocence, a public debate has begun which is cross cultural and beyond borders. As a result of it, some of what goes on behind closed doors, under the flimsy disguise of public health protection and non-proliferation of bio weapons and especially dangerous pathogens, is now out in the open. One only needs to look more closely at what has been done in Georgia at various DOD funded labs and medical project. There is a long list to explore, including deaths from experimental TB antibiotics, a succession of dodgy programmes doctors refuse to talk about, and various experimental treatments on what is often an unsuspecting population. If you do not wish to believe Silverman or the Russian media, enough can be gleaned from open sourced academic materials which clearly demonstrate that proper procedures for informed consent are not being implemented. These shine light on what appear to be “backhanders” paid by and to various funding agencies, the UN, the US State Department, Big Pharma and various partner organisations, including the Ministry of Health, various American universities and the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta Georgia. Information is now being shared with the Congressional Oversight Budget Office, about the apparent planting of false and misleading information. However, all this demonstrate is that US-funded disinformation oversight is in fact blatant disinformation itself, as anyone who has lived in a country on which the US has an “official narrative”, such as Georgia, has always known. Not only are some of these new generation bacteria agents and especially dangerous pathogens so evolved that there is no antibiotic or other treatment that can save a patient. Often the cure is only available in the form of bacteriophage preparations, as also is being produced in Tbilisi Georgia on the first floor of Building B at Eliava Institute. It comes as no coincidence that the US Department of Defense and other agencies have also poured money into improvement of infrastructure at the laboratories on the second and third floors, where the planned production area is housed. These laboratories are used to produce bacteriophage on short notice and will be used for phage concentrate production that is used in the final phage product Founded in 1923, the Eliava Institute is a world known institution working in the field of Applied Microbiology, Virology and Infectious Immunology. Bacteriophage research and application is its main direction.

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classyfoxdestiny · 3 years

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Saving California’s kelp forests

Special report

California’s underwater forests have suffered a devastating decline. Now, the race is on to save them before it’s too late.

Watch the documentary

Watch our special report on how an army of purple urchins has decimated these ecosystems, threatening the marine life that depends on them and the ocean’s ability to help fight climate change. But there is hope.

00:13:28

Beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean, where the cold California current sweeps down from British Columbia, lies a hidden forest of once-astonishing beauty. Known as “the sequoias of the sea” for their rich biodiversity and carbon storing prowess, the kelp forests of Northern California were home to hundreds of marine species, including whales, seals, octopuses and sharks — until recently.

Now they’re the scene of a plague, an invasion and a mass deforestation.

A marine heat wave in 2013 set in motion a series of events that would ravage the forest and destroy the habitat for much of that sea life.

First, warm waters are thought to have helped spread a disease that devastated the population of huge sunflower starfish that lived among the kelp. Then, without this voracious predator to control their numbers, purple sea urchins spread unchecked, feasting on the kelp forest and leaving behind a barren moonscape. Just 5% of the kelp forest remains.

The drama unfolding along this coast is what experts are calling a “climate-driven catastrophe” — one example of how global warming is threatening not only the health of the ocean and the marine life within it but its ability to absorb carbon and help regulate climate change.

The loss is so alarming, it’s mobilized a coalition of researchers, non-profits, urchin divers and others in a desperate race to protect the last remaining kelp forests and rebalance the ecosystem before it’s too late.

Kelp forest locations around the world

Modeled global distribution of the kelp biome

Touch and drag map to move

Kelp forests span nearly 25% of the world’s coastlines, with some of the most prolific found in the waters of South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, and along the west coast of the Americas.

“Kelp forests cover 360 million acres around the world, which is a footprint that’s five times larger than tropical coral reefs,” says Tom Dempsey, director of the California oceans program for The Nature Conservancy. “Like those coral reefs, kelp (forests) are the essential foundation for ocean health and resilience. They support a number of ecosystems and thousands of species from invertebrates to fish, seals and whales.”

Kelp is the world’s largest marine plant, reaching heights of up to 35 meters (115 feet). It flourishes in the cold, nutrient-rich waters and powerful swell of California’s famous surf. Growing up to two feet per day, it’s one of the fastest-growing organisms on Earth and one of its most productive habitats.

Research shows that macroalgae or seaweeds worldwide, including kelp, store an estimated 173 million metric tons of carbon every year — equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions of 160 coal-fired power plants — most of which is deposited in the deep sea, permanently removing it from the atmosphere and helping to fight climate change. But all is not well with the world’s kelp forests.

Areas where kelp forests have experienced decline

These regions of decline represent surface canopy-forming kelp.

South Austalia Tasmania South Africa Central Chile Southern Norway North Sea Celtic Sea Scotian Shelf Gulf of Maine North-Central California Puget Sound Southern Aleutian Islands

Touch and drag map to move, tap on the dots to see the locations

Hover over the dots to see the locations

Pollution, climate change and overfishing have taken their toll on kelp worldwide. Some areas are experiencing extreme losses — Tasmania has lost over 95% of its giant kelp canopy and Norway’s coast has lost 80% of its kelp in recent decades. But few places have been as badly hit as Northern California.

In 2014, a giant expanse of warm water, which had gathered off the coast of Alaska the previous year, expanded all the way down the west coast to Mexico. Nicknamed “the blob,” this marine heat wave wreaked havoc on ocean ecosystems over the following two years, spurring harmful algal blooms and killing sea life like fin whales, sea otters and salmon.

While marine heatwaves can occur naturally, research has linked “the blob” directly to human-induced global warming. Its impacts have been devastating. California’s north coast has lost approximately 95% of its kelp canopy since 2014 over a 350-kilometer (217-mile) stretch of coastline, according to a recent study by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Kelp systems are dynamic, often impacted by storms or cyclical weather systems like El Niño. Turnover is high but those watching kelp over the past decade have noticed this is not the usual boom-and-bust cycle.

“What we’re seeing right now, particularly up on the north coast, is fundamentally different,” says Dempsey. “We are seeing a climate-driven catastrophe with massive impacts to the ecology of that system, as well as the kelp-dependent communities up in the north coast and the larger state economy.”

He estimates that the kelp forests on the northern coast of California are worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year in terms of storm protection, carbon sequestration, fisheries services and tourism. Now, they have been laid to waste by purple sea urchins.

A native species, purple urchin populations exploded after one of its last remaining predators, the sunflower starfish, succumbed to a mass die-off starting in 2013. This army of ravenous purple urchins has eaten almost all the kelp, their primary food source, and created an expanse of urchin barrens — swathes of prickly, purple orbs as far as the eye can see.

Along the whole California coast, people are experimenting with different methods for removing urchin barrens. Southern California has seen these areas expand over the past century due to overfishing and a decline in the populations of other urchin predators. When The Bay Foundation, a non-profit environmental group based in Santa Monica, first started working on its Palos Verdes site near Los Angeles, purple urchin numbers had reached up to 100 per square meter — a healthy ecosystem usually has two.

“They were everywhere, they were on top of each other,” says Heather Burdick, The Bay Foundation’s director of marine operations. “It was terrifying to swim over it because you’re just afraid that you’re going to get spikes all over your body every time you’re doing surveys.”

These purple urchins have been described by researchers as “zombie-like” because they can survive in a starved state by lowering their metabolic rate, living for up to 50 years off algae that grows on rocks on the seafloor. In this state, with their insides shrunk to almost nothing, these starved urchins have no commercial value to divers and no nutritional value to other predators, which consequently ignore them.

The Bay Foundation hires local urchin divers to cull the almost empty purple urchins by smashing them with a hammer and leaving their shells to biodegrade, returning their nutrients to the seabed. While this may sound like an extreme form of conservation, the organization’s CEO, Tom Ford, says it is necessary given the lack of predators and the fact that urchin barrens don’t easily transition back to kelp forests.

Since 2013, they have helped restore 57 acres of kelp forest in the region through culling. Within a few months of starting the process, giant kelp had started to grow back and now the forest is thriving. “Just being able to swim under that canopy of kelp that didn’t exist in 2014 … it’s like a magical cathedral,” says Burdick.

Partly funded by non-profit Sustainable Surf’s SeaTrees program, it also provides an income for local urchin divers. With purple urchin populations demolishing the kelp, little food was left for more commercially valuable species like red urchins and abalone, forcing some local fisheries to close.

Purple urchins are much smaller than their red cousins and traditionally haven’t been worth fishing, until now. Enter the urchin ranchers.

Tap left and right to see some of the species that live in the kelp forest. Keep scrolling to continue reading the article.

Navigate left and right to see some of the species that live in the kelp forest. Keep scrolling to continue reading the article.

Known as “California gold,” the state’s red sea urchins are a local specialty and renowned worldwide for their sweet taste. The gonads, or roe, are served in high-end restaurants across the globe going by their Japanese name — “uni.”

With red urchins in decline in California, a group of divers and entrepreneurs are looking for ways to make it economically viable to remove purple urchins. Santa Barbara urchin divers Stephanie Mutz and Harry Liquornik have teamed up with Doug Bush, the owner of a local aquaculture farm, to turn the worthless purple urchins into a sellable product.

Mutz and Liquornik fish for purple urchins off Santa Barbara’s Channel Islands and bring them to Bush’s farm, The Cultured Abalone, where he feeds them sustainably harvested seaweed for around 12 weeks until they have fattened up — a method referred to as “ranching.”

Bush says the ranched urchins are better quality than those found even in healthy kelp forests — on average 19 out of 20 ranched urchins will be full of roe.

“We essentially go from an empty shell to a little vessel full of delicate, perishable goodness in the space of about 12 weeks,“ Bush says. Mutz and Liquornik then sell the urchins directly to consumers and restaurants through their company, Sea Stephanie Fish. Bush says the response from foodies and chefs so far “has just been spectacular.”

A company doing this on a more global scale is Urchinomics, which has established urchin ranching facilities in California, Norway and Japan — all regions with widespread urchin barrens. It expects its first batch of commercially ranched urchins to go on sale in Japan at the end of July.

Some are skeptical that urchin fishing or culling can have a real impact on the scale of the urchin barrens, but Urchinomics founder and CEO Brian Tsuyoshi Takeda wanted to provide a “commercially driven, scalable solution” that could channel more funding into kelp restoration than traditional grants or philanthropy.

“We chose to build a restorative business model because we figured we as humanity have dug a hole sufficiently deep for ourselves that sustainability alone isn’t going to get us out of it,” says Takeda. “We built the entire business model around the idea that the more we profit, the better the environment becomes.”

The company hires commercial divers to fish the urchins and is working with conservation organizations like The Bay Foundation to ensure their efforts are targeted towards restoration. “We’re kind of like the economic motor that funds kelp restoration through the removal of urchins,” says Takeda.

But for restored kelp forests to thrive in the long-term, one thorny issue needs to be resolved — predators.

A colossus amongst sea stars, the sunflower starfish grows up to three feet (1 meter) wide, with over 20 arms and is one of the most voracious predators in the ecosystem. Found only from Alaska to Baja California, Mexico, sunflower sea stars swallow their prey whole, feasting on a diet of mussels, crabs, sea cucumbers, snails and sea urchins — helping to keep the populations in check.

Gliding along the seabed at surprising speed on their 15,000 tiny feet, these alien-like creatures “strike fear into organisms that they encounter,” says Jason Hodin, research scientist at Friday Harbor Laboratories, a research post of the University of Washington. “You can see organisms basically fleeing as they approach.”

Once abundant on the west coast of the United States, they succumbed to an epidemic of sea-star wasting syndrome starting in 2013 — a disease that makes their bodies melt into a pile of goo.

The event has been described by researchers as one of the largest marine die-offs ever recorded, killing what Hodin estimates to be a billion sea stars — including 90% of the entire sunflower sea starfish population, which are now listed as critically endangered. While the disease had been present in sea stars before 2013, researchers have linked the warming water temperatures at the time to the rapid spread and high mortality rate of the disease.

In partnership with non-profit The Nature Conservancy, Hodin and a team of researchers are working on the first-ever sunflower starfish captive breeding program, at their labs on San Juan island, off the coast of Seattle. In April, they announced the graduation of dozens of juvenile sea stars from larval stage to a mini sea stars, giving hope that they will survive to adulthood.

The eventual goal is to release them into the wild and help restore the lost populations, offering one natural solution to controlling purple urchin numbers, although Hodin is keen to stress this will need collective buy-in from state, federal, conservation and community organizations along the west coast.

Despite the daunting scale of the damage to these underwater forests, those involved in the rescue effort remain hopeful, in part due to kelp’s incredible ability to bounce back.

“It can be really hard to take a clear-eyed look at all of that without a deep sense of sadness, but this is something that we can solve,” says Dempsey. “If we harness the innovation and science and technology and market solutions that are close at hand and aim them at solving this big conservation challenge, we can do it. We can see that happen in our lifetime and that would be an immense achievement.”

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nceee2 · 5 years

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Research and Notes

Readings from class:

Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth

Although Fuller’s book was written in the 60’s, many of his ideas and suggestions still remain very important and relevant in today’s society. An uncanny example of this is Fuller stating that burning fossil fuels isn’t a renewable source of energy and transportation, in fact we are dipping into resource “savings” everytime we make use of the fuel.

Morris The Red, Morris The Green

“At the core of (Morris’s) socialism, was the struggle against pollution and destruction of the environment.” Jack Lindsay

Better the environment by stopping mass production in a competition with another company.

Raymond Reynolds stated that Morris believed commercialism was not only responsible for destroying humans lives, but also for ruining nature.

...‘what Nature gives us, and what a reasonable man can make out of the gifts of Nature for his reasonable use’ - Morris.

Here Morris is stating that we need only to use and produce what we need, not what we want. The resources nature gifts us with are plenty enough to thrive and return back to the land in an two way relationship.

He believed that the first step to a better future was world wide unison in the envisionment of a world where are not at battle with our planet, in sought of domination; then it would happen.

Personal Research:

Insist on the right of humanity and nature to coexist in a healthy, supportive, diverse and sustainable condition.

What does humanity and nature coexisting really mean?

The principle is almost a little ironic. Technically humanity is part of nature, we’ve just prided ourselves as a superior species in a world where nature and us are two different concepts.

How do we measure a healthy, supportive, diverse, and sustainable condition?

Is it possible?

How have humans positively and negatively acted in accordance to the principle in both past and present times?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5114301/

The Human–Nature Relationship and Its Impact on Health: A Critical Review

Valentine Seymour

https://www.humansandnature.org/sustainability-s-source-in-human-nature

Sustainability's Source in Human Nature

Earon Davis

https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/JSM-01-2016-0037

Humans’ relationship to nature – framing sustainable marketing

Helge Lober 2016

Graphic Agility

Adbusters

Packard Material

Circular Economy System

Manitoga:

Manitoga are an exemplary precedent for ecological design that might prompt a reconsideration of modern design’s relationship to nature

characterized by a shift away from the excessive number of delicate and decorative pieces demanded by formal entertaining.

a closer integration of indoor and outdoor living,

but paid careful attention to texture, colour, light and sensual qualities, consciously sculpting the landscape, stones, and vegetation into particular scenic effects

These textures, sounds, smells, and tactile encounters engage the walker with natural materials and processes, and at certain points, Wright narrows a trail in order to force the walker to brush past laurel branches or negotiate granite boulders apparently blocking access

This management has had two goals: To return the landscape to a diverse, healthy, self-sustaining system, and to create dramatic and complex aesthetic effects’

The duality of Wright’s project is understood by Franklin as both regenerative and aesthetic, the latter acknowledging the consciously constructed nature of landscape design, a characteristic generally underestimated in early ecological design projects.

My strategy insist upon the rights of humanity and nature coexisting (in a healthy, supportive, diverse and sustainable manner) is to produce a series of posters / prints that raise awareness of the imbalance and inequality in our world. Primarily I will focus on how humans often alienate themselves from the environment, believing that the world is theirs, and that they are in someway superior to everyone else.

S kellert

(I guess you could say this is focusing more on the healthy and supportive aspects of the principle.)

https://sites.psu.edu/arch311w/2015/12/09/designing-for-human-and-wildlife-users-2/

https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollective/nature-view-nature-design-reconnecting-people-nature-through-design/1069371/

https://www.fastcompany.com/1679785/empowerment-marketing-advertising-to-humans-as-more-than-just-selfish-machines

https://econation.co.nz/biomimicry/

https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollective/nature-view-nature-design-reconnecting-people-nature-through-design/1069371/

Rona Binay Masters Thesis: COEXIST: Mixing With Urban Wildlife, by Rona Binay

https://productsofdesign.sva.edu/blog/rona-binay-thesis

https://ronabinaythesis.tumblr.com/

Why should we care about wildlife?

Because we it to survive. We simply cannot live without wildlife.

Diversity of other species controls population, and provide us with scientifically proven calmer emotions.

Issues such as bees only become visible or ‘interesting’ after it is too late.

Data from the United nations shows the historical increase in the population living in urban areas as opposed to rural. This is likely to increase based on predictions.

70%, meaning cities are where most people experience nature in their daily lives.

Cities are not only the problem, but they are the beginning of the solution to conserving biodiversity.

Researching only and not acting accomplishes nothing.

How can we incorporate nature and biodiversity into our design process?

1. Raise awareness

Trace

Wildspotting > engages people actively

2. Make Changes

Urban birdbath

finch

3. Shift the point of view.

The way to raise awareness is to create an interest or curiosity around the subject.

>educate people about the brilliance of wildlife and our ecosystem.

3 biggest threats to birds are habitat loss, climate change, and collisions with glass or vehicles.

980 million birds die yearly from collisions with glass, only counting the US.

Design not only for / to humans but for every species.

Liz McQuiston Graphic Agitation

Social Change +

Graphic Design

Graphic design fighting for nature

WWF

1970 Earth Day Poster

Fsm

Both human

and natural systems have become more vulnerable,

and the earth has crossed several planetary bound-

aries (Rockstrom et al., 2009, Steffen et al., 2015).

Such consequences have largely resulted from the

historical views of human–nature relationships—

humans should and can conquer nature (Liu, 2010),

or humans can utilize nature without limits (Simon,

1996).

For example, many people began to use

forests in rural China as fuelwood upon their settle-

ment (Liu etal., 1999). The amount of fuelwood col-

lection increased as human population increased.

However, as electricity became more available and

affordable, fuelwood use decreased. As a result of

the new policy banning forest harvesting, forest

harvesting was stopped and thus human–nature

coupling in the form of forest harvesting was dis-

solved (Yang etal., 2013a)

On one hand, hu-

mans rely on natural subsystems (e.g., ecosystem

services such as clean water, fresh air, food, shel-

ter, bioenergy) for survival and development (5).

At the same time, humans alter the natural sub-

systems, usually in a manner that degrades them.

Impacts:

However, the Biophilia hypothesis (44) remains the most substantially contributed to theory and argues for the instinctive esthetic preference for natural environments and subconscious affiliation for other living organisms.

Supportive findings include humans’ preference for scenes dominated by natural elements (4), improved cognitive functioning through connectivity with nature… More recently, evidence is emerging to suggest that connectivity to nature can generate positive impacts on one’s health, increasing with intensity and duration

This conservative behavior (e.g., natural defenses, habitat management, and ecological restoration) can be termed “Urgent Biophilia” (81) and is the conscious urge to express affinity for nature pending an environmental disaster. As Radkau (69) suggests, with warnings of climatic change, biodiversity loss, and depletions in natural resources, this poses a threat to humanity.

, physical health is defined as a healthy organism capable of maintaining physiological fitness through protective or adaptive responses during changing circumstances

It has the ability to both determine as well as be determined by a host of multifaceted health and social factors being inextricably linked to overall health, inclusive of diet, exercise, and environmental conditions. As a result, there are no single definitive indicators used to capture its overall measurement.

Empirical research in this domain was first carried out by Ulrich (46) who found that those hospital patients exposed to natural scenery from a window view experienced decreased levels of pain and shorter recovery time after surgery.

Much of its research within the Evolutionary Psychology discipline examines the recuperative effects of nature on well-being and its beneficial properties following researcher’s arguments of humanity’s affiliation for nature

#47

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fitnesshealthyoga-blog · 5 years

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New Post has been published on https://fitnesshealthyoga.com/cacti-101-how-to-grow-a-hardy-cactus/

Cacti 101: How to Grow A Hardy Cactus

Learn how to grow and take care of cacti in any climate.

It used to be that when I heard the word “cactus,” one thing came to mind: a hot, dry desert. Cacti were fascinating plants, but aside from the occasional potted novelty from the discount store, I only expected to see them in picture books or botanical centers.

But I found out later that I was wrong. Most cactus species are sensitive to cold. But hardier ones grow well into Canada. It’s not difficult to grow cacti outdoors year round in your own garden.

With the right soil conditions, certain cacti are cold-hardy in at least USDA zones 6 to 9, and some to USDA zone 4. They’re all heat-tolerant in AHS zones 12 to 1.

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Not all species in the groups that follow are cold hardy. If you see one in a nursery or catalog I don’t mention here, be sure to verify its hardiness zones from a reliable source.

Love this garden information? Sign up for Garden Gate’s Newsletter

See also Gardening 101: Plant Your Own Gourmet Garden

Here are a few of the more easily grown, cold-hardy cacti:

Prickly Pear Cacti

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Prickly Pears

With some species native to as far north as Minnesota, these are usually the hardiest cacti. They make excellent rock-garden plants and can even grow in well-drained, grassy areas.

With the approach of winter, the fat, succulent “pads” of prickly pears begin to dry out and shrink. This is a way of dealing with freezing weather. They may even flop onto the ground, but will revive in spring.

The ‘Pink Parfait’ prickly pear is a good example of the medium-sized prickly pears. It will grow about 7 inches tall, with a spread of up to 3 feet. The spiny “pads” of these cacti grow in suc- cession, one coming out on the tip of another, with new ones sprouting from the bases. The flowers open from the tops of these pads in mid- to late spring, followed by oval fruit. Creamy-flowered ‘Crystal Tide’ and yellow-flowered Opuntia cymochila are shown in the insets above. All three of these prickly pears are cold- hardy in USDA zones 4 to 9.

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Cholla

The shrublike cactus is a tree cholla. The various cholla cacti belong to the same genus as the prickly pears, but they have cylindrical stems instead of flattened pads. They range in size and habit from small, ground-hugging creepers like devil cholla to shrubs or small trees that can reach up to 15 feet in their native habitats. Flowers are usually rose-pink to red. The tree, devil, Whipple and Klein’s chollas are cold-hardy in USDA zones 5 to 9. Although parts of the tops may die back in extremely cold winters, they’ll regrow from the roots.

Rainbow Cactus

Hedgehog Cacti

All of these cacti have a globe or barrel shape, making them look a little like their namesake animal burrowing into the ground. There are about 45 species; the ones you see here are cold-hardy in USDA zones 5 to 9.

The color and shape of the late-spring blooms on the hedgehog cactus also earn it the name claret- cup cactus. Each flower stays open for several days. Plants slowly reach 12 inches tall with a 6-inch spread.

Because of the alternating bands of color, the clumping plant is also called rainbow cactus. There are a number of regional variations throughout its native range in the West and Southwest. Its flowers bloom in varying shades of yellow to near-white in midspring. Stems will eventually reach up to 12 inches tall with a 6-inch spread.

Pincushion Cacti

These are low- growing plants that form clustering colonies of rounded stems. Sometimes the stems are partly below the soil line, leaving only a small hump exposed.

The tiny pincushion cactus is Lee’s dwarf snowball. With a mature size of only a couple of inches across, it’s a good choice for a rock garden. It’s cold-hardy in USDA zones 5 to 9.

Clustering pincushion grows as far north as southern Canada. Different cultivars range in bloom color from deep purple to salmon pink. It eventually forms large clusters of stems up to 12 inches tall and wide and has a long bloom season lasting from late spring through early summer. It’s cold-hardy in USDA zones 4 to 9.

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The Missouri pincushion, is another prairie native. It can be found in many grasslands throughout the Great Plains and Upper Midwest. Occasionally, it will poke its head up through an established lawn. It can even survive being whacked with a lawnmower because there is enough of the plant left underground to grow new shoots.

Individual plants grow up to 4 inches tall and wide. The green-yellow flowers bloom in late spring. Missouri pincushion is cold-hardy in USDA zones 4 to 9.

Learn the best place to plant a cactus.

Where to Plant Cacti

Although many species of cactus can be extremely cold hardy, they absolutely must have excellent drainage. They can’t stand to have wet feet, especially in winter when they’re not actively growing and taking up water. In cold, wet climates with frequent freezing and thawing, heavy soils can get soggy. That makes the ground vulnerable to frost heaving that can dislodge the shallow roots of cacti.

One good place to use cacti is in a gravelly rock garden, especially one built on a slope. Hillsides generally have better drainage than flat areas. The soil should be lean—a mixture of half coarse builder’s sand and half 3⁄4-inch pea gravel with only two percent organic material like compost will suit them fine.